a bad apple

A high ranking Canadian military commander has been charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of two women. He may be linked to other crimes.

Williams, of Tweed, Ont., and the 8 Wing Commander of Canadian Forces Base Trenton, was arrested Sunday in Ottawa and has been charged with first-degree murder in the death of Jessica Lloyd, 27, and Cpl. Marie-France Comeau, 38.In addition to the murder charges, Williams faces counts of forcible confinement, breaking and entering, and sexual assault in relation to two home invasions in the Tweed area in September 2009.

Another source notes that the sexual assault victims were photographed during their ordeals.

Williams transported VIPs -- high ranking government officials and foreign dignitaries -- during his career. He's met the Queen. He also served as commanding officer for Camp Mirage, reportedly near Dubai, from 12/05 to 6/06.

He knows how to transport things to places like Haiti and Afghanistan. His base also provides support for the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games.

The colonel championed Operation Santa Claus at a Brighton grocery store, collecting gifts for overseas soldiers. The Contact reported Williams got such a package at Camp Mirage and was especially moved by the "little notes from children." Trenton is a base for our relief ops in Haiti, so the colonel is a fixture in press photos of supplies headed to that quake ravaged country. And when Jessica Lloyd, 27, of Belleville, was reported missing, CFB Trenton and its commander were quick to offer help. The base rescue helicopter joined the search on Jan. 30.

So helpful. He sent the base rescue helicopter to search for the woman he allegedly murdered. And he allegedly appreciated the "little notes from children."

The Canadian people have no doubt spent a small fortune on his career. He has a lot of specialized training.

His wife, Mary Elizabeth Harriman, lives and works in Ottawa as the associate executive director of the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada. She was allowed into their Trenton home briefly. The Trenton home, purchased recently, may be a crime scene.

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Williams was on track for promotion to the highest levels of the military.

The retired officers, who asked not to be named, say Williams was being groomed by the military leadership for a move into the senior ranks. The French training, the selection for the Canadian Forces command and staff course in 2003 and 2004, and key appointments at National Defence headquarters meant that Williams was potentially going places, with brigadier-general the next rank he might obtain.

Given his access to power and transportation..... one can only wonder at this point what the hell he's been up to, and with whom. Maybe some people might be getting a little nervous.

Williams once served as a Challenger aircraft pilot who transported VIPs. The Air Force declined to say who he flew but the Challenger regularly flies cabinet ministers and the governor general, Canada's ceremonial head of sate. A spokesman for Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he didn't believe Williams flew Harper.

..."We are certainly tracking the movements of where this man has been over the past several years and we're continuing with our investigation," Nicholas said.

Another source: Williams was photographed last month with Defense Minister Peter MacKay and Canada's top general during an inspection of a Canadian aircraft that was on its way to support relief efforts in Haiti....Dan Dugas, a spokesman for MacKay, called the charges serious but said MacKay will not comment.

Yes. Serious. And shocking. Or is it?

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These charges raise questions about how such a "shining bright star" like Williams could really be a murderer. 

We've talked about psychopaths before here, many times. Psychopaths recognize each other, starting in childhood, and they array themselves against the society of normal people. They use their charm and their lack of conscience to get into positions of power. They are predators. The halls of power are full of psychopaths and sociopaths.

On Monday, military brass expressed their condolences to the family’s of the victims and shock at who police had named as the suspect. “I never worked with him closely and didn’t know him personally,” Maj.-Gen. Yvan Blondin, commander of the Air Force said. “As far as I know from what I’ve seen from his file, he was just a shining bright star. If you talk to people on the wing they would probably tell you that they admired the wing commander...Everybody is so surprised, we just do not know what to think about this.” 

The charges raised questions about whether members of the military are required to undergo regular psychiatric testing as they assume higher command. 

The local police cottoned onto him during a roadside stop. Details about that remain vague, but something led them to connect some dots, "a singularity in those incidents." And now they've connected four: two murders, two sexual assaults. They are also looking into the 2001 death of Kathleen MacVicar, whose body was found in a wooded area near CFB Trenton in Ontario on July 15 2001. (source)

UPDATE from the comments (Mary), and also noted in this article:  He [Williams] was located as a result of the specialized snow tires he has on his vehicle. They matched the treads left by the victim's vehicle.

Note also he [Williams] was an avid photographer, played golf, and lived on the same street where two victims resided. The perpetrator photographed his victims, left one by a golf course. And all this occurred within 2 months of his [Williams'] new position in the area. His [Williams'] wife only spent weekends with him. (source) (source) (source)

{Police doing police work: priceless!}

Article confirmation of tire tread angle:

Rae also wouldn't comment on reports that police traced Lloyd's disappearance to Williams by using distinctive tire tracks left in snow near the woman's home off Highway 37. Reports have said that investigators linked the tire tracks to a specific vehicle and that Williams was stopped by police on Feb. 4 during canvassing of motorists driving along that highway.

Some people will tell you it's just an isolated incident. We've got our narrative discipline for you, right here:

Retired colonel Alain Pellerin is the executive director of the Conference of Defence Associations Institute and served in the army for 36 years. He said he had never heard of such a "strange" case. He compared notes with fellow long-serving military friends Monday...."I think it's a local affair that will affect the population in Trenton because they knew him personally and people served under him. He was the base commander, after all. "But the rest of the people in the forces, it's not related to the work, really, so it's not something that will taint the armed forces negatively. There is a love affair between the population and the armed forces and I don't think that will change. It's really just one individual who's accused of a serious crime."

Slick.


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One of the sexual assault victims tells her story:

TRENTON, Ont. -- “I was in the company of the devil himself. “And I was sure he was going to kill me.” 

She has titanic courage, this Tweed single mom. For 21/2 hours in the deepest dark of last Sept. 30, she fought, begged, cajoled and prayed for her life.

...She fell asleep alone in her house, in a back room, and awoke around 2 a.m. She was choking. Her comforter was pressed to her face. “I thought maybe there was a fire,” she says. But it was a man. A strong man. She struggled. He beat her about the head. She broke free enough to breathe.


“You DON’T want to look at me,” he said. His voice was deep and muffled. “I won’t,” she whispered. But he blindfolded her and she never laid eyes on him, not once. Even when he bound her hands behind her back.

Even when he trussed her up in a sort of makeshift harness, fashioned from a pillowcase, twist ties and wire he found in her room. Even when he cut off her clothes with a knife and said, “I’ll be careful not to cut you.” Even when he assaulted her. Even when he took photographs, letting her touch the camera so she’d know.

Even when he told her: “You seem like a nice lady.” “It was so bizarre,” she says. “He was playing a game with me. I had conversations with him the whole time, almost like I was negotiating with him.” “You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?” she asked him, early on. “No need for that,” he replied. He convinced her he had accomplices burglarizing her home, though she heard nothing.  At 4:30 a.m, in that bleakest time before dawn, he ordered her onto her knees, head down, on a couch. “He has a gun,” she thought. “Now, I die.” But he left, warning her he’d come back in 10 minutes. She waited, but he did not return. And she called for help.

...She knew Col. Williams only to say hello. She did not even know he was CFB Trenton’s commander. Shortly after Christmas, she drove past his front yard on Cosy Cove Lane. She waved. He waved back.

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Williams was commanding officer of Camp Mirage from 12/05 to 6/06. According to this source from July 2005, Camp Mirage had been a clandestine base and the Canadian government was in negotiations with the UAE for a long-term arrangement. Williams would come in soon afterwards.

The Canadian government is in the process of establishing a long-term military base in the oil-rich Persian Gulf region. According to a recent article in the Globe and Mail, the Canadian government is negotiating with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to gain control of a section of the Minhad Air Base, located near Dubai, for years, if not decades, to come.  Since late 2001, when the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) participated in the US invasion and conquest of Afghanistan, the Canadian military have controlled part of the Minhad facility, operating a clandestine logistical and supply base there. The CAF has dubbed its UAE base Camp Mirage.
...Camp Mirage is four-hours flying time from Kabul.

The securing of a permanent CAF base in the UAE will mean that Canadian military forces can be rapidly deployed throughout the oil-rich Persian Gulf region—an area where the US is already embroiled in one war and which is at the center of Washington’s plans to gain a strategic stranglehold over the world’s oil supplies.

The poorly kept secrecy about Camp Mirage stemmed, reportedly, from Dubai.

Defence Department officials acknowledge that attempts to keep the location secret have nothing to do with operational security. "This isn't about the safety of our troops," one said. "It's about the sensitivity of the host country and its neighbours."

The Foreign Affairs and Defence Departments say high-ranking Canadian officials gave even higher-ranking UAE officials a verbal undertaking not to talk about the deal or disclose the location.

But officials who have seen Canada-UAE agreements allowing the base to be set up said they do not contain a secrecy clause or an agreement not to disclose the location. They could not explain why the UAE would be nervous about the base.

...Dubai, with its soaring skyscrapers and, by Arabian Peninsula standards, wide-open lifestyle, seems an odd place to try to keep a secret. It has worked hard to attract international business, building on a long history as a bustling trading centre and port. Many international corporations have their Middle East headquarters in the city, which has eclipsed Beirut as a business centre and playground for wealthy Arabs.

In June 2008, after Williams had moved on in his spectacular military career, an incident allegedly happened between people from Camp Mirage and some locals. But it went down the memory hole...."according to CF public affairs officials the alleged incident never took place and that a “myth” about this incident has started circulating as an explanation for whatever changes might have been brought in governing troops going into town."

Any ways, I’m told the alleged incident earlier this year involved members of the Van Doos and an altercation with locals. It was serious enough that civilian police in the UAE had to respond…..or so the emails from in-theatre claim. It seems the incident was also serious enough that the Canadian Forces has altered  its policies regarding how soldiers spend their time in Dubai (this is according to my correspondents) so as not to jeopardize the continued use of Camp Mirage. So troops are only allowed out on the town for highly monitored six hour stretches and transported to and from via the base bus.

I checked into these allegations and the response from CEFCOM public affairs is that they have absolutely no written report on any kind of incident……at all. Period. Full stop. 

And from the comments: Anyone who closely follows the exploits of the Canadian military is well aware of the Vandoos reputation as a Regiment with 'esprit'. Unfortunately whenever such ugly incidents occur, the senior brass feel the need to sweep the mess under the rug. As a result, whenever the Vandoos deploy operationally, the media describe them as 'the famous Vandoos' when a more apt moniker would be 'infamous'.

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It will be interesting to see how far the police get in their investigation of Williams. If there are links into The Pedophocracy, and it would be astonishing if there weren't, we can expect intense pressure for him to be cauterized, isolated, destroyed, portrayed as a single rotten apple.


UPDATE: more stories h/t Pen and Aangirfan:

Was this the work of a serial killer?

Colonel's arrest reopens cold cases in three provinces.



And of course, we can't forget Dave McGowan's There's Something About Henry, in which we learn the truth about so-called serial killers.

Most Americans are familiar with what is considered the classic serial killer 'profile.' This was a notion first put forth by the venerable FBI, which coined the term 'serial killer' and pioneered the concept of 'profiling,' in an alleged attempt to understand the phenomenon of mass murder. In truth, as we shall see, the concept of the serial killer profile was put forth largely to disinform the public.

UPDATE: another article

BELLEVILLE, Ont. - Did he spot her on a Friday night at a popular dance club here? Or did they cross paths at the Poplar Golf Course where they both golfed? These are places both slaying victim Jessica Lloyd and her alleged killer, Col. Russell Williams, were known to have hung out. Police are going through as many possibilities as they can to try to determine just how Lloyd and the man charged with her murder may have originally been in each other's presence.

With Clp. Marie-France Comeau, who was murdered last November in Brighton, there were obvious places of common interest since Williams was her commanding officer at CFB Trenton. She was a flight attendant on some VIP flights and he had been a pilot. And the two sexual assault and home-invasion victims lived on the same lakefront where Williams had his cottage.
But with 27-year-old Lloyd there is a working theory the alleged killer may have spotted her in a nightclub, or at the golf course, where several sources have said they both frequented. It's interesting to note that her home, the location in the country where her body was located, where two other sexual assaults occurred and where Williams lived in Tweed are basically located along the same stretch of highway.

In all three cases, the homes were rural and a fair distance from neighbours. As the shock of this case turns into anger, several people have told me how "strange" they felt their previous encounters were with the then-base commander. "The girls were creeped out and were talking about that very thing just days before this news broke," said one source who described a charity event in November where Williams was a celebrity blackjack dealer. Others have described the murder suspect's demeanour socially as cold and unfriendly.

His neighbour, Larry Jones, said while he never noted anything creepy about him, he did notice strange elements. "I remember him coming over and saying I have to drop the puck to open the Belleville Bulls season and wanting to know how to do that. He said 'What do you do, throw it up in the air?' " Jones was surprised he didn't know anything about hockey. "I got out a puck and two sticks and showed him."

Jones, who is still miffed that he was originally questioned by the OPP for the assaults, said one thing he noticed about Williams was his attention to detail and precision. The tires on his sports car are an example. Jones said it was those tires that police may have used to allegedly track Williams from an abduction scene to eventually being stopped in a roadside canvass days after the disappearance. Although police do not confirm it, common belief is a quick-thinking Belleville police officer made the connection from the tires on the car to the tracks in the snow. 

My colleague Don Peat interviewed retired FBI profiler Gregg McCrary who said most serial rapists and murderers normally leave a buffer zone around their home. If such a criminal doesn't follow this rationale it may be a function of an individual's "pathological narcissism" or a belief that they can't be caught. But, he said, choosing a victim close to home would provide an individual a better chance to study their prey.

Jones said as he looks back, he really knew very little about his neighbour. He's not the only one. In Williams' biography, the military does not have any information prior to his joining the service in 1987. Other than the fact he attended the University of Toronto, there is little else. In fact, I have not been able to determine where he was born, where he grew up, if he has parents still living or siblings. It will be very interesting to study where Williams has been because police sources tell me when it comes to criminal charges "there will be more."